No, this isn’t a cast iron thing. Using stainless pans, you can get nonstick effects that, in my experience, far outperform Teflon anyway. The process is called “spot seasoning.” I have cooked crispy, cheesy rice noodles with eggs with zero sticking.
I love my cast iron pans, but stainless is my daily go-to. Added bonus: use 100% copper wool to clean your stainless pan. The copper-coated wool at most grocery stores is problematic; you might get a few uses out of the coated garbage and then it starts shedding metal bits.
When my cast iron started flaking, it was because I was being too gentle with it. Once I began to suspect that that was the case, I decided that from now on if this layer of seasoning isn’t strong enough to withstand my copper scrub pad, then it’s not worthy to be the foundation for the next later of seasoning. I’ve had much better results with this approach.